Page 36 of Coco and the Misfits (The Candyverse #4)

COCO

W ork goes smoothly, distracting me enough from my thoughts of the three alphas that my mood lightens. But as the afternoon rolls around, the decision to let Zach back in returns to… not exactly haunt me, because it’s not a bad thing, but to fill my thoughts with hope.

And let’s admit it, a fair amount of joy, as well as apprehension.

Am I making a mistake?

Will this turn out okay?

Will he give me a good excuse for his behavior?

At home, I busy myself baking peanut cookies and cleaning. Evening can’t come fast enough. I putter about the apartment, humming under my breath and shaking my booty.

If only Atticus could see me now, I think, and sadness swamps me.

Thankfully, my phone starts ringing and I dive for it, wondering if it’s Zach.

But it’s June. “Coco! How is my bestie doing?”

“Woman.” Shock forces me to sit, and of course I land right on top of a book I’d left on the sofa. “Ow!”

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” I mutter. “Involuntary ass invasion.”

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” I laugh, extracting the book from underneath my ass. “I was cleaning the apartment and left things lying about. I sat on a book. On an edgy story, obviously.”

“You’re crazy.”

“There is a method to my madness.” I pause. “Haha, I’m kidding. No method at all. Just pure chaos.”

“Were you redecorating again?” she demands. “God’s sake, Coco.”

“I wasn’t. And redecorating is a ritual.”

“Of course it is.” She sighs. “Dark magic? Voodoo?”

“Look, I’m a ten, definitely, but I’d have been burned at the stake in the Middle Ages.”

“Only the Middle Ages?” she quips.

“You’re right, last century too.”

She giggles.

I grin.

“You’re incorrigible,” she says.

“I missed you,” I confess. “What’s going on? Why did you disappear?”

“Long story.”

I lean back against my pile of cushions. “I happen to have some time on my hands.”

“Well…” She clears her throat. “I met someone.”

“I am shook.” I snort. “Okay, not really, but do tell. Is it a pack?”

“Yes.”

“The Sexton Pack, by any chance?”

She sucks in a breath. “Who told you?”

“A little bird. Why is it such a mystery?”

“Because… I don’t know what I’m doing,” she blurts out, “and I haven’t decided yet, and I’m staying away from everyone until I decide.”

“… okay,” I say after waiting for more and getting nothing. “Is it something dangerous you got yourself into, woman? If so, you have to tell me.”

“I… don’t think so.”

I sit up. “June. That’s far from reassuring. What the hell? Where are you?”

“I have to go now. Talk another time?”

“Wait, June?—”

She disconnects. I stare at my phone.

She disconnected on me. Good God. I hope she knows what she’s doing. I need to talk with Sawyer and Gigi about this. Not Bee, I decide. I don’t want to scare her. But someone.

We have to find out what’s happening with June.

Just then, I hear a knock on my door.

It’s kind of early for Zach, and I haven’t received a text from him, but I know what expects me outside.

Wondering if today it will be a bunch of roses or a single one, what he might have written in the little note, and whether this time he’s right there, waiting for me, I go to open.

Smiling, I remove the bolt, take out the chain and throw the door wide open. “Zach?”

Only to be jumped by two men who shove a rag into my mouth and drag me away and down the stairs.

* * *

This is it, I think, the only thought getting through the fog of utter panic. This is the end of me.

It’s them, the two guys from the Alpha Bet night. How did they find me? Why did they come for me?

Had it been them staring at me from across the street the other day and not Atticus after all? Had the noises I had heard a few times outside my door been them?

I’m kicking and squirming as best I can, screaming through the dirty rag stuffed in my mouth, but they’ve come prepared this time. One holds me as the other ties up my legs and hands with cable ties, and then they wrap me in a thin carpet and carry me down the rest of the stairs to the entrance.

Like Cleopatra, I think randomly. Wasn’t she wrapped in a carpet once to impress Mark Antony?

Nothing royal about the way they’re carrying me out of my building, though, and oh shit, they’re going to rape and kill me, aren’t they? Or sell me through a dark omega slaving web. I’ve read about that.

I just never thought I could become a target.

In full panic now, I start squirming and kicking harder, and someone slaps at my head, hissing “Be quiet!”

Stunned, I stop struggling. I can’t breathe very well, either, the carpet slowly suffocating me.

They are saying something, moving faster, and I fight the haze inside my head because I need to escape now?—

A shout, a curse, a jostle.

I tumble, my feet hitting the ground, cushioned through the carpet, but the jolt is painful. Someone growls like a beast, and I’m jostled again.

My fall is stopped and the carpet unrolls enough that I can draw a breath. The rag in my mouth is choking me. A hand pulls it out and I start coughing.

“Coco! Sweetheart, are you okay?” Atticus is gazing at me with worried eyes, cradling me to his chest. He’s kneeling on the ground, I realize as I draw breath after shaky breath and my brain reboots. “Did they hurt you?”

“I’m okay,” I croak and he curses. “I’m fine.”

“Zach! Ryder! Come back here!” he yells and I hear running steps.

He’s not here alone. Zach? And Ryder? How are the three of them here together?

He has to see the question on my face because he says, “Zach wanted to give you more than just flowers tonight and we were going to help him.”

Help him? Nothing makes sense. Why would they help him?

“Ace! Is she okay?” Zach is running toward us. “Ace!”

“Wait up! Fucking athlete.” Ryder follows him, kind of red in the face. “Not all of us are martial arts trainers.”

“Your punch was solid,” Zach says.

“Yeah, but man, you decimated them,” Ryder rumbles. “You… Coco? Those assholes, they tied her up!”

“You… all of you…” I struggle to sit up, hogtied as I am, when Atticus unrolls more of that dirty carpet off me. “What the hell is going on?”

“Hey to you, too.” Zach grins. “Nice to see you’re okay.”

“Those assholes,” Ryder grunts. “Those motherfucking sons of bitches thought they could take her away. Fuck them.”

“What did you do with them?” Atticus asks.

“Locked them up in my car,” Ryder says.

“You have a car?” I blink.

He chuckles. “Yeah.”

“And why did you bring your car…?” I can’t make this out. Nothing computes.

“I had all the stuff in it. Now I also have two criminals.”

“Stuff?”

“We’ll explain,” Zach mutters. “Dammit, we need to cut these cable ties.”

“Upstairs,” Ryder says. “We need scissors. And then we should take her to the hospital.”

“I’m fine,” I protest. “They didn’t hurt me, I swear.”

“Are you sure, Candy girl?”

I ignore the endearment. “Yeah. I don’t like hospitals, and I don’t have the money for it?—”

“Money isn’t an issue,” Atticus growls.

“… I still don’t want to go.”

“Fine. I’ll check her,” Zach says. “I have a First Aid and Safety diploma. Let’s go.”

I stare at him. There’s so much I don’t know about them, and I still can’t process that I was almost kidnapped again and that these three showed up and literally saved my ass.

Proved themselves , like Sawyer had said. Haven’t they now proven themselves?

Sure they have. They proved they are decent human beings when the circumstances demand it. Brave. Protective. Amazing guys.

But who says they want to be with me?